Flagging Interest

As I was writing yesterday's post to attempt to summarize the many ways Confederate symbolism was still with us in 2015, I had no idea how swiftly South Carolina's State Congress was working to decide the fate of the Confederate battle flag on its capitol grounds. It appears that the unspeakably horrific events of June 17th at the hands of a deranged white supremacist have forced the hearts, minds, and hands of the powers-that-be to reconsider the implications of iconography and symbols inexorably linked to the subjugation of non-white peoples, and particularly of African-Americans.

And with that, the battle flag of the former Confederate States of America will nevermore be hoisted in an official capacity in the State of South Carolina, the epicenter of both the Civil War and the Old South.

A meme generated by an anonymous commentator and posted to the Internet.

According to The World Encyclopedia of Flags and Heraldry, three American states currently employ or otherwise make reference to the Confederacy in their state flags: Arkansas, Georgia, and Mississippi (Slater and Znamierowski 2007: 196-200). In the case of Georgia, the current flag has been considerably altered (some might say "toned down"), which, like the current state flag of Mississippi, before 2001 included a Confederate battle flag in its canton (top left corner).

What's worth noting is that the battle flag so fiercely disputed at the current time was never the national flag of the Confederacy (the "Stars and Bars," in the top right position above, was). Regardless, the symbolic resonance that the battle flag has maintained over the past 150 years has indeed morphed into something more complex as white supremacists (oftentimes claiming their general Southern heritage as a motivator) seek to maintain such representation of their beliefs in the midst of an American polity otherwise shifting towards multiculturalism, tolerance of minorities of all kinds, and equal rights for all (a notion represented in the comic strip in the top middle).

Legislation is currently in session at both state and federal levels and the controversy rages on in public discourse about the appropriate usage of the Confederate battle flag. What's also in debate is how to appropriately reference whatsoever the former Confederate States of America. For example, as some argue, should these divisive symbols be relegated to museums only? Is it acceptable or accurate, as some have argued, to compare the Confederate flag to the national flag of Germany under Nazi rule? (Public display of a swastika or any other symbolism related to the Nazi government of the 1930s and 40s is strictly forbidden in Germany.) On June 27th, as seen in the bottom right corner photograph above, one individual took matters into her own hands to physically remove the disputed banner from the South Carolina State Capitol.

As of today, Thursday, July 9th, the bill proposed by Republican South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, approved by the State Senate this past Tuesday July 7th, has now been approved by the House of Representatives. The New York Times reports, "Ms. Haley’s office said that she would sign the bill into law at an event at 4 p.m. on Thursday at the State House. With Ms. Haley’s signature, the clock will begin to tick, and the state will have 24 hours to take down the flag, which will be moved to the Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum, near the Capitol." On the federal level, the issue is no less complex but should yield at least one decision shortly.

The comic by Ruben Bolling (tomthedancingbug.com) in the top left position above gives some satirical perspective on the politics and history involved. For some more commentary along these lines, here's the Onion's take on the matter. The meme shown above is, of course, an example of the counter argument.

I'll continue to follow these events as they unfurl (no pun intended) and update this blog as new developments solidify. ﻿﻿

The official flag of the City of Chicago was originally adopted in 1917. It was then amended in 1933 and 1939, when its two additional stars were added, respectively.

The cyan and white bars represent geographical features of the city: the cyan stripes for Lake Michigan and the North Branch of the Chicago River; the top, middle, and bottom white bars for the North, West, and South Sides, respectively.

The four red, six-pointed stars symbolize four of the most historically significant events in the city's history. The first is for the U.S. Army's Fort Dearborn and the massacre of settlers and destruction that took place there in 1812 at the hands of local Native Americans. The second is for the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which wreaked havoc on the city, destroying a large portion of its buildings and infrastructure. The third represents the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, a truly international event and a major milestone in establishing Chicago as a world-class city. (The 2003 best-seller The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson details this extraordinary event.) And the fourth star represents the Century of Progress Exposition of 1933-34, which commemorated Chicago's first one hundred years of existence and further bolstered the effects of the Columbian Exposition forty years earlier. It was speculated that if Chicago had won its bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics (instead of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), that event would have been a prime candidate for a fifth star on the flag.

Each star's six points represents a unique value, attribute, or historical fact about the city. The first star's points represent transportation, labor, commerce, finance, populousness, and salubrity (a fancy way of saying healthiness). For the second star, the values of religion, education, aesthetics, justice, beneficence, and civic pride are symbolized. The points of the third star stand for the six governments that the territory of Illinois (and what eventually became Chicago) has been ruled by: France (1693), Great Britain (1763), Virginia (1778), Northwest Territory (1798), Indian Territory (1802), and the State of Illinois (1818). The last star's points stand for various mottos, nicknames, and other concepts relating to Chicago: its status as the United States' third largest city; the City seal's Latin motto Urbs in Horto ("City in a Garden"); the motto "I will"; Chicago as "Great Central Market" to the nation; "Wonder City" in reference to its rapid growth and national economic importance, especially at the turn of the 20th century; and its firmly established reputation as the "Convention City," where businessmen and women from around the nation and the globe often meet.

Chicago's municipal flag is extremely popular among the city's inhabitants. The cyan bars and red stars can be seen in the form of tattoos, t-shirts, accessories, and beyond, in addition to various sizes of flags. In fact, the design is so beloved that in a survey conducted by the North American Vexillological Association in 2004, it was voted the second most popular American city flag; the number one spot went to Washington, D.C.

﻿As mentioned in a previous post of this blog, the significance of flags has recently come to the fore with the emergence of photos of suspected killer of nine African-American churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, Dylann Storm Roof. As much as his actions were uncategorically despicable, their symbolic resonance calls for further analysis. In one photo, Roof wears a jacket with two patches sewn onto the right breast: those of the former regimes of Rhodesia and South Africa, each ruled - until 1980 for the former and 1994 for the latter - by a white minority and governed with systemic prejudice against non-white inhabitants and particularly black Africans.

Above ﻿are these former flags along with their present-day iterations. Placing them back-t0-back shows the drastic changes in political structure that they underwent, namely from white-minority rule to universal suffrage and an official policy of representative democracy. What may be less obvious, though, are some elements that have been retained from one to the other.

Most interesting about the transformation from the flag of the former Rhodesia to that of modern-day Zimbabwe is that, despite all of the other changes, the golden Great Zimbabwe Bird remains. The World Encyclopedia of Flags and Heraldry (Slater and Znamierowski 2007: 228) explains, simply, that it represents "the great past of the country." More specifically, since the soapstone artifacts of the ancient site of Great Zimbabwe predate the modern era, it's interesting that both white-minority-ruled (and technically illegal by international consensus since its unilateral declaration of independence from Great Britain in 1965) Rhodesia and black-majority/socialist Zimbabwe have both co-opted the symbol's use in their flags, despite the extreme differences in each administration's politics.

In the context of Roof's use of the former flag, however, its symbolism as the banner of an inherently racist government is most salient. The coat of arms at its center is based on that of Rhodesia's founder, South African mining magnate Cecil Rhodes, also the namesake of the Rhodes Scholarship Programme that allows international students the opportunity to study at Oxford, Rhodes' alma mater. In his name, mostly Anglo settlers originating in South Africa sought to establish a bastion of white rule in south-central Africa. For starters, the red star of socialism clearly distinguishes Zimbabwe's flag from that of Rhodesia. The green, yellow, and red are common among many African flags and traditionally stand for the earth, mineral resources, and the struggle for freedom, respectively. The black represents the vast majority of the nation's citizens.

But of course South Africa has also wrestled with racial iniquity since its settlement by Dutch Boers ("farmers") in the 17th century. When the British arrived around a century later, the two groups fought vigorously for dominance over this strategic and vast territory that had been populated by various groups of black Africans for centuries, if not millennia. The former South African flag, in currency from 1928 until apartheid was dismantled in 1994, represents that jockeying for power between the descendents of Dutch and British settlers. The orange-white-blue horizontal tricolor of the flag's main body hearkens back to William of Orange,the Dutch nobleman who rebelled against Spain and gained the Netherlands its independence in the 17th century, around the same time that Dutchmen began to colonize South Africa.

Looking at the old South African flag's central charge, the complexity of history and politics manifests itself in full force: the Union Jack shows the impact of Great Britain, particularly in the case of its former Cape Colony; the central flag is that of the Boers' Orange Free State, which took the orange of William's prinsenvlag for its three horizontal pallets (bars) on a white field, along with a canton (corner) of the alternate Dutch tricolor of red, white, and blue, the very same that remains in currency to this day for the Kingdom of the Netherlands. On the right is the flag of the other independent Boer republic of the late 19th and early 20th centuries - the Transvaal. Its only distinction from the flag of the Netherlands proper is its green field at the hoist (left side), representing the open expanses of the territory's veld.

When Nelson Mandela won the presidency at the nation's first fully democratic elections of 1994, it was only fitting that a new flag represent such a sea change. Noted for its unique design - which is also wildly popular among South Africans of all walks of life - the pall, or Y-shape, according to flag expert Whitney Smith, "stands for the coming together of many parts and the merging of past and present" (2001: 86). The black, yellow, and green represent Mandela's party, the African National Congress (ANC) while the red, white, and blue stand for the flags of the erstwhile Boer republics mentioned above.